Skeleton
Ray Bradbury
It was past time for him to see the
doctor again. Mr Harris turned palely in at the
stairwell, and on his way up the flight saw Dr Burleigh’s name gilded over a pointing arrow. Would Dr Burleigh sigh when he walked in? After
all, this would make the tenth trip so far this year. But Burleigh shouldn’t
complain: he was paid for the examinations!
The nurse looked Mr Harris over and smiled, a bit amusedly, as she tiptoed to the glazed glass
door, opened it, and put her head in. Harris thought he heard her say, ‘Guess
who’s here, Doctor.’ And didn’t the doctor’s voice reply, faintly, ‘Oh, my God, again? ’ Harris swallowed uneasily.
When Harris walked in, Dr Burleigh
snorted. ‘Aches in your bones again! Ah!!’ He scowled
and adjusted his glasses. ‘My dear Harris, you’ve been curried with the
finest-tooth combs and bacteria-brushes known to science. You’re just nervous.
Let’s see your fingers. Too many cigarettes. Let’s
smell your breath. Too much protein. Let’s see your
eyes. Not enough sleep. My response? Go to bed, stop the protein, no smoking. Ten
dollars, please.’
Harris stood sulking.
The doctor glanced up from his
papers. ‘ You still here? You’re a
hypochondriac! That’s eleven dollars, now.’
‘But why should my bones ache?’ asked
Harris.
Dr Burleigh spoke as to a child. ‘You
ever had a sore muscle, and kept irritating it, fussing with it, rubbing it? It
gets worse, the more you bother it. Then you leave it alone and the pain
vanishes. You realize you caused most of the soreness yourself. Well, son,
that’s what’s with you. Leave yourself alone. Take a dose of salts. Get out of
here and take that trip to Phoenix you’ve stewed about for months. Do you good to travel!’
Five minutes later, Mr Harris riffled through a classified phone directory at
the corner druggist’s. A fine lot of sympathy one got from blind fools like
Burleigh! He passed his finger down a list of Bone Specialists, found one named
M. Munigant . Munigant lacked an M.D., or any other academic lettering behind his name, but his office
was conveniently near. Three blocks down, one block over…
Mr Munigant , like his office, was small and dark. Like his
office, he smelled of iodoform , iodine, and other odd
things. He was a good listener, though, and listened with eager shiny moves of
his eyes, and when he talked to Harris, his accent was such that he softly
whistled each word: undoubtedly because of imperfect dentures.
Harris told all.
M. Munigant nodded. He had seen cases like this before. The bones of the body. Man was not aware of his bones. Ah, yes, the bones. The
skeleton. Most difficult. Something
concerning an imbalance, an unsympathetic coordination between soul, flesh, and
skeleton. Very complicated, softly whistled M. Munigant . Harris listened, fascinated. Now, here was a doctor who understood his illness! Psychological, said M. Munigant . He moved swiftly, delicately to a dingy wall and
slashed down half a dozen X-rays to haunt the room with their look of things
found floating in an ancient tide. Here, here! The skeleton surprised! Here
luminous portraits of the long, the short, the large, the small bones. Mr Harris must be aware of his position, his problem! M. Munigant’s hand tapped, rattled, whispered, scratched at
faint nebulae of flesh in which hung ghosts of cranium, spinal cord, pelvis,
lime, calcium, marrow, here, there, this, that, these, those, and others! Look!
Harris shuddered. The X-rays and the
paintings blew in a green and phosphorescent wind from a land peopled by the
monsters of Dali and Fuseli .
M. Munigant
Similar Books
